Ematic 4GB Video Player Orange

Have had this for about 3 months now and use it nearly daily. If it died today, I've gotten my money out of it. I use it mostly for music, but have watched video and read on it as well. Of course, it's a flash drive, so you can use it to transfer things from computer to computer as well. It can even be used as a portable Linux installation and boot from USB.

I'm actually using this right now. It's playing Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried".

Pros:

Price

Color choice

Good sound quality

Text capability screen is very small for reading, but it can do it useful if you create a to-do list on the computer and then transfer it over so you have it handy

Radio good reception and nice to use for bad weather

Video screen is small, but I grab video off of YouTube and it works nicely comes with software to convert to proper format that is easy to use and works on Windows 7 for me good color and playback with no skipping

Battery recharges quickly from USB I get 15 to 20 hours listening to music the screen goes blank at a user selectable time and that helps not having to power the display and light video, of course, uses it up faster but you can watch a couple of two hour movies and still be able to listen to a couple hours of music afterwards (I tried this just to see you'd have to be desperate to watch video at a long stretch on this due to screen size)

Durability except for the headphones, it has held up much better than I expected I did not want to spend a lot of money on a player because I'm not easy on them this gets thrown into a backpack, around the truck, and put into my pocket with keys the only visible damage is some very minor scratching on the front, which I take the blame for and I'm surprised it's not worse

Cons:

Headphones the ones included fell apart on the first day this is why I didn't give this 5 stars it wasn't a big deal for me as I intended to replace them anyway I got some JVC's in matching color

User interface not exactly intuitive menu system the buttons are flush and do not have backlighting I'm still able to easily use them in the dark but someone with bigger fingers may have problems

Screen size this is a 50-50 thing bigger screen would use more battery and make the unit larger, which is fine if you're looking for a portable video player I was looking for a music player that could do video in a pinch so the screen has worked for me, but it is much smaller than my daughter's iPod

I have not used the sound recorder at all, so can't comment on that.

All in all, a nice little piece that's well worth the money. I see now that they have a gadget from this same manufacturer that has a built in camera and video recorder and larger screen. Of course, the whole thing is larger. I'm not sure which I would buy today.